SMS Irene was a protected cruiser or Kreuzerkorvette of the German Imperial Navy (Kaiserliche Marine) and the lead ship of the . She had one sister, ; the two ships were the first protected cruisers built by the German Navy. Irene was laid down in 1886 at the AG Vulcan shipyard in Stettin, launched in July 1887, and commissioned into the fleet in May 1888. The cruiser was named after Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine, sister-in-law of Kaiser Wilhem II. As built, the ship was armed with a main battery of fourteen guns and had a top speed of . Irene saw extensive service with the German fleet in the first years of her career, frequently escorting Kaiser Wilhelm II's yacht on cruises throughout Europe. In 1894, she was deployed to East Asian waters; she was in dock for engine maintenance in November 1897 when Otto von Diederichs seized the naval base Kiaochou Bay, and so she was not present during the operation. She was present in the Philippines in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Manila Bay between American and Spanish squadrons during the Spanish–American War in 1898. Irene eventually returned to Germany in 1901. She remained in service until early 1914, when she was retired from front-line service and converted into a submarine tender. She served in this capacity until 1921, when she was sold for scrap and broken up the following year. Design Irene was long overall and had a beam of and a draft of forward. She displaced normally and up to at full load. Her propulsion system consisted of two Wolfsche 2-cylinder, double-expansion steam engines that drove a pair of screw propellers. Steam was provided by four coal-fired fire-tube boilers, which were ducted into a pair of funnels. These provided a top speed of and a range of approximately at . She had a crew of 28 officers and 337 enlisted men. The ship was armed with a main battery of four 15 cm RK L/30 guns in single pedestal mounts, supplied with 400 rounds of ammunition in total. They had a range of . Irene also carried ten shorter-barreled 15 cm RK L/22 guns in single mounts. These guns had a much shorter range, at . The gun armament was rounded out by six 3.7 cm revolver cannon, which provided close-range defense against torpedo boats. She was also equipped with three